Through extensive research and testing, CRE identified key areas that could benefit from a fresh set of eyes. By implementing a number of strategic changes to the home page navigation, forms and pricing sheet, the Conversion Rate Experts A/B testing team applied their proven methodology and tool stack, which includes Convert Experiences, to generate a huge bump in paid memberships as well as increasing annual memberships by 91% for Smart Insights.

About

Launching in 2006, Conversion Rate Experts quickly became one of the premier agencies to excel in the Conversion Optimization field. Optimizing more Top 500 Website pages than any other company, CRE clients include: Google, Facebook, Amazon and Dropbox. A key component in their continued dominance of the market is their partnerships with many top-shelf software programs including Convert Experiences for their A/B Testing.

Conversion Rate Experts is an international consultancy that inspires and helps website owners to dominate their market using a systematic approach to conversion rate optimization. — Ben Jesson, Co-founder and CEO of Conversion Rate Experts.

Challenges

How do you grow one of the most successful digital marketing companies in the world? Smart Insights was already a successful company in its own right; by providing resources and training to help businesses succeed online. Founder, Dr. Dave Chaffey is considered one of the top 50 influencers in digital marketing today. Smart Insights teamed up with Conversion Rate Experts to see if they could improve upon something that was already working.

One of the best features of the service with Conversion Rate Experts is that it’s really based on deep research.—Dr. Dave Chaffey, CEO and co-founder of Smart Insights.

How Convert Helped

Using their unique methodology to identify actionable steps to grow Smart Insights, CRE and the innovative team at Smart Insights, started with the basics. Keeping it simple, they began by analyzing the customer experience. Taking a visitor-centric approach, they spent the majority of their time doing deep analysis of the website and the user’s experience. They became the customer; not only going through the funnel but experiencing the complete lifecycle of a customer.

They reviewed all previously collected metrics, including customer surveys and consulted with the customer service team to better understand the issues they faced. Talking directly with the staff and customers meant they had first hand data.

Know that with deep analysis and research, they would be better able to create wins for their clients, Conversion Rate Experts interviewed real visitors; they had prospective qualified clients go through the funnel and provide feedback; they analyzed visitor behaviour; they used tree-testing to analyze navigation and information architecture; they designed surveys and polls to gather even more data, and with this information they brainstormed winning ideas in a ‘mastermind’ session.

The winning ideas focused on what massive changes could be made to seriously impact the bottom line by doubling Smart Insights sales. Putting aside the smaller issues and focusing on what would make the biggest win, they set out to test their ideas.

Using Convert Experiences to A/B test each winning idea, it was soon apparent that by adding a sales letter that highlighted the benefits of becoming a paid member generated 157% more paid memberships.

By optimizing the membership form CRE brought Smart Insights a win of 91% increase in annual memberships.

Forms lie, what make them a powerful candidate for optimization. Make sure to prioritize your forms when planning your optimization strategy.

When faced with potential customers who had challenges in navigation, CRE used tree testing to analyze the paths that prospects were taking through the pages to solve common problems. Using Convert Experiences to test an optimized version of the new navigation, it was revealed that a client-centric increased paid memberships by 75%.

By focusing on research and analysis to brainstorm winning ideas and running those through the all-important A/B testing using Convert Experiences software ensured that the changes were indeed effective and in fact, Conversion Rate Experts and Smart Insights were wildly successful in improving the customer experience and increasing engagement.

The CRE Methodology™ is not about best practices, is a proven process of activities from a wide range of disciplines that measurably grows online businesses using conversion rate optimization.

Convert Experiences is one of the easiest A/B testing software tools to use.
Our consultants find its live chat customer support invaluable.
We’d recommend it to the same people who are considering using Optimizely and VWO.